Unrighteous anger

James Cary

As a general rule, I have, what Bertie Wooster would call a
'Sunny disposish'. It's one of the reasons I've always admired GK
Chesterton, William Wilberforce and CS Lewis. They were all
famously cheerful souls that most people were pleased to have
around. As such, they were all potent public witnesses to the
Christian faith.

According to some schools of psychotherapy, this general
bonhomie would be put down to all kinds of neuroses and
insecurities. The fictitious but believable Chandler Bing in
Friends used humour as a defense mechanism. Comedians are often
thought to do the same, drawing attention away from some crushing
loneliness or frustration. Not me. My desire to make people laugh
is based on the fact that I like it when people laugh.

People tend to assume that cheerfulness goes hand in hand with
optimism. The two are no strangers for sure, but it is possible to
skeptical, or even cynical, and good-humoured. For soldiers, this
is a permanent state, as I learned when writing Bluestone 42 for
BBC3. And it's no coincidence that the show was also very popular
with medics, who share a similar 'gallows humour'.

I may be cheerful, but I am also cynical. I have very little
confidence in institutions of any kind (as I explore in my book
Death by Civilisation). Nor do I believe that free markets solve
all our problems. Neither the State nor the Market deliver the one
thing we need most: love.

So I think almost all politics for the foreseeable future, from
the national to the international is, at best, futile. Moreover,
the national and international economy, based as they are on
putative values of imaginary money that will be spoken into
existence by some yet-to-beelected government, resemble a gigantic
unsustainable Ponzi scheme. In short, we're all going to hell to in
a heavily-indebted handcart that will be burned up before the last
payment has been made on it. On the upside, this will probably
happen before any serious ecological disaster we've been promised.
Is that enough cynicism to make the point?

But I remain cheerful because I am an optimist. After all, I'm a
Christian. How I can't be anything but cheerful? God is in heaven.
Christ is on his throne. He's not pacingaround heaven nervously,
hoping he's done enough. He has sat down, having done everything
necessary for our salvation. And he's sent his Spirit to do his
work on earth, along with the occasional angel. Sooner or later,
Christ will call time and all death, pain, suffering and mourning
will be no more. Now that's a reason to be cheerful, surely?

And yet, the public stance of many Christians I see on Twitter
and Facebook is a permanent state of rage. Anger at the wrong kind
of politicians and commentators, hatefilled fury at bankers or
businesses, spiteful jokes at someone who pokes their head above
the parapet or swims against the cultural tide. At best, one could
often describe it as graceless. It regularly tips over into
self-congratulatory- righteousness and from there can degenerate
into vitriol and bile, masquerading as wit.

Social media is a bear pit. Emote or question received wisdom in
the wrong way and you will invoke all kinds of comments from people
who really should know better. It's an arms race of anger. Fail to
show sufficient respect for cultural icons of the day that meant so
much to people growing up, or represent some abstract noun
everyone's really into and you will be e-walloped, told to check
your privilege, or accused of some extreme political ideology that
was responsible for genocide. Christians do all of these
things.

As you can probably tell, I don't like it.

Jesus was angry with the money-lenders in the temple. I get
that. He was spectacularly rude to the Pharisees, calling them
snakes and white-washed tombs to their faces (you had to be there).
But simmering rage is not one of the primary characteristics of his
earthly ministry.

Yes, there are Psalms of rage and an entire book of lament.
Jesus calls people snakes. The apostle Paul does suggest the
Judaizers cut off their meat and two veg. But these are the
exceptions, surely? The Bible is a book of deep joy. No wonder
following Jesus is not all that attractive to those outside the
church. Christians seem every bit as angry as everyone else, with
the added streak of self-righteousness. Let us not forget that
Jesus was fun to be with and that as far as pain, misery and
suffering are concerned, he's got this.